


A Whole New Sort

by regenderate



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-07-08 03:26:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19862734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regenderate/pseuds/regenderate
Summary: Crawly takes a breath, and then she’s become her new sort of human.The angel doesn’t even blink. Crawly resents that, sort of.(Good Omens but they're lesbians)





	A Whole New Sort

This is how it goes:

Crawly is an angel. Crawly hangs the stars. 

Crawly makes friends with the wrong angels.

Crawly doesn’t realize what’s happening until it’s too late.

Crawly falls.

Crawly is a demon. Crawly is slated to be the root of all evil.

* * *

There’s something about Eve.

Crawly can’t quite put a finger on it. 

She’s innocent, is the thing. She didn’t do anything wrong. Crawly offered an apple, and Eve took it. She didn’t mean it as a sin.

She didn’t mean to fall.

Crawly slithers out of the garden and prepares to take human form. Crawly hasn’t done this before; there haven’t been humans to take the form of. 

But this is a decision, then, that Crawly has to make. What sort of human to be. There aren’t that many sorts right now, of course, really just an Adam sort and an Eve sort, but humanity has just been opened up to so many new ideas. And, of course, Crawly is the one who came up with a lot of those ideas. Crawly is rather good at ideas, generally speaking.

So Crawly makes up a new sort of human, sort of in Eve’s image, sort of in God’s.

(Crawly did meet God, once. Back when Crawly was still an angel. It had been… illuminating, to say the least. Quite literally.)

Crawly makes up a new sort of human, with copper colored hair and massive black wings and shining yellow eyes, and slithers outside, where one of God’s angels— the one Crawly had seen earlier, with a giant flaming sword— stands guard, swordless.  
Crawly takes a breath. She’s nervous, all of a sudden. She hasn’t even been a she for long— it’s a human concept, gender, one of those things God seems to have invented just for laughs— and she’s just made up a whole new sort of human, and she’s about to debut it in front of one of God’s angels. One of God’s most _interesting_ angels, no less, one of the ones who was working on obscure details on Earth (the veins in maple leaves, the exact number of dots on each ladybug, the way a bird waits until the last minute to get out of the way of an oncoming vehicle) while Crawly was off hanging the stars in the sky.

Crawly takes a breath, and then she’s become her new sort of human. 

The angel doesn’t even blink. Crawly resents that, sort of. 

She glances over.

“Didn’t you have a sword thing?” she asks.

The angel doesn’t answer. Crawly laughs.

“You didn’t give it to _them_ , did you?”

She doesn’t have to look at the angel’s face to know she’s right.

“Oh,” she says, “you are _too good_.” 

The angel doesn’t respond.

“Aziraphale, isn’t it?” Crawly asks.

“Yes,” the angel— Aziraphale— says. “Crawly?”

“The one and only,” Crawly says. 

“Pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Aziraphale says. He isn’t looking at Crawly. Crawly doesn’t look back.

* * *

She changes her name a few years later. Not a dramatic change— just an A to an O. Crawly was the first name she chose as a demon, the result of a moment of free-association. She was evil now, evil was a creepy-crawly sort of thing, she would be Crawly.

But— Crowley isn’t sure she wants to be defined by her evilness. Even though she is evil and everything.

Aziraphale seems surprised by it. Crowley tells him when the world is flooding, when there are a million other things to worry about, when children are going to die.   
Seems like something a demon would do. Be focused on her own name when children are about to die.

* * *

It’s not that Crowley has any particular attachment to Aziraphale, beyond the faint fondness she has for the angel who created the fizz in a bottle of champagne, but she keeps _seeing_ him. It seems they both just happen to keep getting assignments that involve humanity. 

Eventually, Crowley decides to suggest a sort of arrangement, between the two of them. 

“It’d be far more efficient if we shared, you know,” she says at the trial of Sokrates.

There isn’t much for Crowley to do here— yes, inciting a mob was her idea, and sure, the general air of resentment in the air is hers too, but Sokrates is making death seem noble. Aziraphale called that “one of my finest accomplishments” earlier, but now he just looks startled.

“What on Earth do you mean?” he asks. 

“Well,” Crowley says. “You know. We’re really just canceling each other out, here.”

“Well, yes,” Aziraphale says. “I suppose we are.”

“Might as well both stay home,” Crowley adds. “Or share the load.” She wouldn’t say this to just anyone, but Aziraphale, who stands next to her with three scrolls tucked under his arm, whose _chiton_ is lined with suns embroidered in gold thread, seems like a sensible sort.

Aziraphale doesn’t say yes, but he doesn’t say no, either. Instead, he says, “Might be worth thinking about.”

In front of them, Sokrates lifts his glass.

* * *

The next time Crowley sees Aziraphale, sitting at the bar of a Roman restaurant, Aziraphale is a woman.

It’s not that much about her physicality has changed, although her hair is longer and in a bun at the nape of her neck— it’s something Crowley can _feel_. 

“You’re _different_ ,” she says, sitting down.

“Yes, well,” Aziraphale says, “everyone seems to be blaming Eve as the root of all evils. Suppose I thought I’d— subvert that, a little. I’m not sure she deserves it.” She pauses. “Besides, I feel a little more like _me_ this way, I think.”

Crowley gives Aziraphale a look. 

“You do look more at home,” she says. “As a woman, that is. More settled.” She looks around. “Not that it’s going to grant you any favor with this crowd.”

“No, I’ve noticed that,” Aziraphale agrees. “It’s exhausting, really, having to convince them I’m worth their time.”

“Not exhausting enough to give it up, though,” Crowley says. 

“No, not quite,” Aziraphale agrees.

“Here long?” Crowley asks.

“Not particularly,” Aziraphale says. “Thought I’d stop by and try Petronius’s new restaurant. You?”

“Just nipped in for a quick temptation,” Crowley says.

Aziraphale chuckles.

“You should try an oyster while you’re here,” she says, nodding to her plate. 

“Aziraphale,” Crowley says. “Are you tempting me?”

“I know, I know,” Aziraphale says. “That’s your job.”

Laughing, Crowley tips an oyster into her mouth. Aziraphale’s right— it’s quite good.

* * *

Crowley brings up the whole _arrangement_ again a thousand years or so later, when they find themselves about to duel each other for a human war, a completely pointless duel when you consider that angels and demons can’t die and, overall, don’t count when it comes to human wars. They’re both helmeted, their faces hidden, but Aziraphale recognizes Crowley’s voice.

“I should have known it was you,” she says when Crowley flips up the front of her helmet. “The Black Knight. Very dramatic.”

“Someone’s got to add some drama,” Crowley says, looking around. “Otherwise it’s just— mire, and plague, and death.” She nods at Aziraphale. “So, how’s it going for you?”

“All right,” Aziraphale says. “Spreading peace.”

“What a coincidence,” Crowley says. “I’m spreading discord.”

“How odd,” Aziraphale says. “Do you think we’re—”

“Working very hard in very damp places and canceling each other out?” Crowley asks. 

“It is rather damp, isn’t it,” Aziraphale says. 

Crowley pauses.

“Do you remember,” she says, “what I said at Sokrates’ trial?”

Aziraphale glances around, then up at the sky. She leans in.

“Do you mean about— _sharing_?” she asks.

“Indubitably,” Crowley says. It’s not quite the right word, but it’s one of Crowley’s favorites. She uses it whenever possible.

“They’d know, wouldn’t they?” Aziraphale asks. “Michael and Beelzebub and— and all of them. They _check_ , don’t they?”

Crowley shrugs, arms spread wide. 

“They’ve got better things to do than check up on us,” she says. “As long as it all gets done, and every so often we’re seen about town spreading things.”

Aziraphale is shifting uncomfortably in her armor, but not in a way that makes Crowley think she disapproves.

“No!” she says. “Absolutely not.” 

“All right, then,” Crowley says. “We never had this conversation.” 

“Not a word,” Aziraphale agrees.

* * *

But they both stop being knights, after that, and two weeks later, Crowley meets Aziraphale in a busy city center.

“I’m supposed to be poisoning the water supply,” she says. “There’s going to be a plague, you know.”

“Well, then,” Aziraphale says. Crowley notices a few hairs falling out of her bun— every time she’s seen Aziraphale since she’s been a woman, she’s had a few loose hairs, no matter how put-together she seems. Crowley rather admires it, in a purely aesthetic sense. “I suppose I’d better get some medicine together, hadn’t I?”

“You’d better,” Crowley says. “Don’t suppose you’d like to walk with me to the river?”

“Won’t that make me complicit?” Aziraphale asks.

“Oh, no one will ever know,” Crowley assures her. “Remember? They don’t check. Anyway, it’s not like you’re poisoning the river yourself.”

“Well,” Aziraphale says, “there is meant to be a balance. Between good and evil.”

 _You can’t know that_ , Crowley thinks, but she doesn’t want to argue just when Aziraphale is agreeing to spend time with her. 

“Exactly,” she says instead. “Walk with me.”

Aziraphale walks with her.

* * *

They meet after that, again and again and again. It’s partially that Crowley rather likes Earth, and takes any excuse to go there (not to mention that she’s pretty sure Aziraphale does the same), but it’s partially that she’s started to figure out where to look if she wants to find Aziraphale. The other demons can rarely come up with anything approaching decent conversation, after all, and Aziraphale is rather good at it, even if she is a bit stuffy.

By the time they’re standing in Shakespeare’s Globe, watching _Hamlet_ , they’ve been meeting haphazardly for thousands of years, sometimes trading tasks, sometimes just going for a walk or having a meal or sitting on a bench somewhere and feeding ducks. This time, they ran into each other on their way in— they were both in the area for different reasons, and had thought they might see a play while they were at it.

They were also, apparently, the _only_ two who had had such a thought. 

“Thought Shakespeare was supposed to be brilliant,” Crowley says before the show starts, leaning back against the wall of the pit. “Thought millions were lining up for this.”

“That might be in the future,” Aziraphale says. As heavenly (or hellish, Crowley’s never been quite sure on the terminology) beings, they do tend to have a certain amount of foreknowledge, and sometimes the past and the present and the future get all sort of muddled together.

“You know, I think you’re right,” Crowley says. “Well, we’ll see if he’s worth it, I suppose.”

“Shh!” Aziraphale says, nudging Crowley. “It’s starting!”

Shakespeare _is_ worth it, but more worth it is watching Aziraphale watch with the show. She doesn’t cheer or boo or clap— instead she calls out her opinions directly to the characters, more than once causing an actor to lose his place and stammer for a good few seconds before improvising something. Aziraphale doesn’t seem to notice. She just keeps calling out things like, “I don’t trust your uncle,” or, “He doesn’t like you like that, Ophelia!” 

By the end of it, Crowley’s had an excellent evening, performed a miracle, and gotten Aziraphale to do her work off in Edinburgh while she— what is she going to do instead?

Tend to her plants, probably. She’s gotten a number of plants, which she tends entirely through threats and violence. It’s a sort of way to channel her emotions, really. She can’t control her life, she can’t control the universe, but she can batter these plants into submission. And she’s a demon, isn’t she? She’s meant to batter things into submission. Never mind that the whole reason she has plants and not pets is she couldn’t bear to speak to living animals that way. 

And that’s what happens— Aziraphale goes off to Scotland, and Crowley goes home and tends to her plants.

She ignores the part of her that wishes she and Aziraphale had both gone to Edinburgh, maybe even gone together.

* * *

The next time she sees Aziraphale, it’s a month or two later, and they’ve both been sent to Florence. It’s the Renaissance, and Crowley has dressed for the occasion, in a full suit with her hair flowing in russet waves around her. She loves pretending to be nobility, the ornate and overdramatic outfits and the affected mannerisms. It’s a game to her, a performance, a show. Not to mention that she prefers men’s clothing, and when the human nobles realize she’s not a man, they tend to react with a fascinating sort of surprise. Sometimes even anger. Crowley’s spent years trying to figure out why that is. She invented this sort of human, after all, but it’s not like it’s an inherently evil sort. Not like the other things Crowley’s invented. The nearest she can figure is it’s part of the whole joke around gender— if you don’t do it right, you get sneered at. 

Well, Crowley’s no stranger to being sneered at.

The Renaissance is lovely, too. Tensions are so high, Crowley barely has to do anything. She just has to say the right word to the right person and everything starts to unravel. It’s in the middle of this unraveling that she sees Aziraphale, desperately trying to make peace between two dueling youths. She sneaks up behind— the youths pay no mind. Crowley’s rather concerned about Aziraphale’s proximity to their swords, actually. It would be a shame if Aziraphale got discorporated and left Crowley all alone.

“Still good, I see,” she says, leaning to say it right in Aziraphale’s ear.

Aziraphale jumps.

“Crowley!” she says. “You startled me.” 

“Come with me,” Crowley says. “I’ll miracle them safe.”

“That’s really not—”

Crowley snaps her fingers.

“Too late,” she says. “Come on.”

Aziraphale turns to face her with a sigh. Crowley, still leaning in, has to practically jump back. 

“I had that under control,” she says.

“But this way you get to come with me,” Crowley says. “I’m done with my discord, you know. Got nothing to do but see the sights.”

“Which sights would those be?” Aziraphale asks. Her hair is still in that same almost-perfect bun, and she’s wearing a white cloak over a gray dress. 

“I don’t know yet,” Crowley says. “Any recommendations?”

“I hear Michelangelo’s got a new sculpture up,” Aziraphale says. “We could go see that.”

“Oh, I love art,” Crowley says. “It’s so _human_.”

“It is rather remarkable,” Aziraphale agrees. She holds out an arm. “Shall we, then?”

Crowley takes it, trying not to overthink what that gesture might mean in human terms. They aren’t humans, after all.

* * *

It’s during the French Revolution that Crowley realizes she’s come to value Aziraphale quite a lot. She’s watching the revolution happen, pretending to her supervisors down in Hell that she’s the one who caused it, making sure not to dress as ornately as she’d like, when she catches wind of “a strange lady in gray” about to be executed at one of the nearby guillotines.

For a moment, Crowley feels like someone’s pulled the floor out from under her. Worry consumes her, fear that she’s too late, fear that Aziraphale has already been killed.

A moment later, her rational brain catches up and reminds her that Aziraphale’s an angel, she won’t die just because she’s beheaded, but she _might_ be discorporated, which would be quite a shame, but certainly not the end of the world, or even of Aziraphale. _And_ this might not even be Aziraphale.

A moment after that, her rational brain takes another step and sees what’s really quite obvious.

She cares about Aziraphale.

Her rational brain starts arguing with itself here, saying demons are incapable of caring, but if she didn’t care about Aziraphale why did she feel like the floor had fallen out from under her, but maybe she just _thinks_ she cares, and it goes on like that until her emotional brain kicks in again and says _IF YOU DON’T DO ANYTHING AZIRAPHALE IS GOING TO DIE_.

That’s when Crowley realizes she needs to go through with finding an insurance plan.

She starts walking, thinking it over. She’s been thinking about it for quite a while, really, since she and Aziraphale started their agreement, but she always sort of thought they’d stop someday, Aziraphale would get cold feet, Crowley would become a proper sort of demon who actually wanted to do her own evil deeds. 

But clearly, Crowley realizes, as she rushes almost involuntarily towards the prison that houses the “strange lady in gray,” she isn’t willing to let that happen. She’s friends with Aziraphale, after all, the sort of friendship she didn’t mean to form but can’t do without.

(Aziraphale always was one of her favorite angels.)

She gets to the prison and miracles Aziraphale away and recognizes the relief that floods through her. They go to lunch (Aziraphale came all this way for crepes, of course she did) and they feed the ducks, and then Crowley miracles a little piece of paper with two words written on it and says, “I need a favor.”

“A favor?” Aziraphale asks. “We already have the arrangement.”

“This is different,” Crowley says. “In case it all goes belly-up.”

“What’s wrong with bellies?” Aziraphale asks.

“If you see a fish’s,” Crowley says, “it usually means they’re dead.” She pauses. “Now you’re getting me distracted. Look, if it all goes wrong, I want insurance.”

She passes Aziraphale the note. 

Aziraphale refuses, staunchly and steadfastly.

“Do you know what trouble I’d be in if they knew I’d been fraternizing?” she asks. “It’s completely out of the question.”

“I don’t think it’s called fraternizing for the women,” Crowley says stiffly.

“Well, whatever you’d like to call it,” Aziraphale says. “I do not think there is any point in discussing it further.”

And suddenly Crowley is filled with annoyance. Doesn’t Aziraphale know what it means that she would rather risk her own unraveling than risk losing what they have? Doesn’t Aziraphale know that Crowley is a demon, incapable of love, and doesn’t she know that somehow Crowley loves _her_? (Her rational mind says no, probably not, because Crowley hasn’t actually said anything, but her emotional mind absolutely insists that Aziraphale knows, that she _must_ know, because it’s too big of a deal to be a secret.)

“I don’t need you,” she growls. “I have plenty of others to _fraternize_ with.”

“Of course you do,” Aziraphale says, still frustratingly calm. “As do I, of course.”

“Of course,” Crowley says, and she gets up and stalks off.

* * *

She doesn’t see Aziraphale again for a something like fifty years. 

It’s a rather busy fifty years. She gets a car, for one thing. Takes credit for assassinating an archduke. Goes anywhere Aziraphale isn’t. Does evil, possibly a bit more zealously than she might have if she hadn’t needed a distraction. 

She’s so caught up in (avoiding Aziraphale) doing evil that she forgets about looking for holy water. Not that it matters, given that the whole reason she needed it in the first place was in case she got caught fraternizing with Aziraphale, and she’s ruined any chance of that happening again.

* * *

But. When she hears that Aziraphale’s trading books with Nazis. She has to do something.

Here’s the thing: Crowley has _nothing_ to do with World War II. Every single component hits a level of cruelty that she has never, _never_ , been able to accept. Normally, as is her job, she goes along with evil, grits her teeth and lets it happen, but she’s actually been hanging around Germany trying to stop it all for years now. Which means she knows Nazis, knows what they’re like, and knows that, whatever Aziraphale’s plan, she’s _going to get hurt_.

It hits Crowley, then, why Aziraphale wouldn’t give her the holy water. 

The thought of Aziraphale being hurt, even after fifty years, hurts her.

Beelzebub, of all people (demons?) tips her off, saying she might want to be wary of whatever it is the good guys are up to, and Crowley drives herself to London. She speeds the whole way— miraculously, her car can go much faster than most, and even more miraculously, it skates right over the English Channel. She gets there, realizes Aziraphale is meeting the Nazis in a _church_ , takes a moment to reroute a few bombs, and takes a deep breath before entering the church.

The door handles burn her hands. The floor burns her feet, even through the soles of her shoes. She finds herself almost dancing through the aisle, watched by a shocked Aziraphale and an even more shocked group of Nazi agents. Part of her registers that Aziraphale is back to her more masculine form, wearing a suit, her hair short, but most of her energy is focused on her searing feet.

She dimly registers the Nazis calling her by her human name— Antoine J. Crowley, these days— which she’d actually forgotten she started using. But she’s made a name for herself in these circles, a double, triple agent for hire, brilliant at what she does but no one can quite figure out what that is, considered for jobs that ordinarily no one would think of a woman for. And people know that name. Use that name.

She almost laughs at Aziraphale trying to work out where it comes from.

“Why Antoine?” she asks.

“Sounded like fun,” Crowley says. “You don’t like it?”

“No, no,” Aziraphale says. “I didn’t say that.”

Crowley thinks she detects a bit of a blush, but maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

A pointed nod towards the holy water and a couple of miracles later, they’re out of the church, walking towards Crowley’s car. The minute the church is bombed, Aziraphale’s figure shifts back to her usual form— a little shorter, with her long hair in its same bun, a tartan skirt replacing her trousers. 

“Why’d you change?” Crowley asks.

“It’s easier, sometimes,” Aziraphale says. “To be a man. And of course we as heavenly bodies have no gender.”

Crowley doesn’t quite buy into that. She’s been living as a human long enough that she’s had to fit into their society, and gender is a big part of that. She chose hers carefully, and now it does feel inextricable from the rest of her. Whenever she goes back to Hell she feels a little out of place, even, when no one else cares.

“If we have no gender,” she says, instead of disagreeing, “why not always take the easy road?”

“I just feel _wrong_ about it,” Aziraphale admits. “I still don’t understand why. But I try to only do it when it’s absolutely necessary. After all, most people these days can accept a woman running a bookshop, given half a second to think about it.”

“They’ll accept anything if you put your mind to it,” Crowley says, from experience. “You wouldn’t believe what I’ve gotten away with.”

“It’s just harder,” Aziraphale says. “I honestly don’t know how you manage.”

“With aplomb,” Crowley declares. 

“That was very kind of you, back there,” Aziraphale adds. 

“Shut up,” Crowley says.

“It was,” Aziraphale says. “Properly noble, really.”

“Well, I didn’t do it for you,” Crowley assures her. “I happen to be a great believer in preserving books.”

Aziraphale stops in her tracks.

“The books!” she exclaims. “I forgot all the books!”

With a snap of her fingers, Crowley reaches over, picks up the books, and offers them to Aziraphale, barely keeping the smile off her face. 

“Little demonic miracle of my own,” she says.

The smile she gets in return is worth everything.

* * *

They’re friends again, after that. Only friends, if the two of them could ever be “only” anything. Smiles and small touches are all she gets. She and Aziraphale both settle in London (it’s a coincidence, she swears to Satan, a complete coincidence), and they both travel the world, doing good and evil fairly indiscriminately at this point. One weekend Crowley might have an event in town to go to, the next, Aziraphale will have a conference of independent booksellers, and so they trade off cosmic duties so they can attend to their more immediate earthly obligations. 

It’s going quite well, Crowley thinks— she gets to “just happen to be passing by” Aziraphale’s store as often as she wants, she doesn’t have to bother with her work about half the time, and she can focus on small, petty projects, like tying up phone lines and trying to get people to build roads in evil shapes. She never was much for the slaughter and mayhem that her demon compatriots so enjoy, but it’s quite funny when computers go down and stop projects or there’s a horrible traffic jam because a set of ducks have just decided to take their time crossing the road. (She only does the duck thing once— she’s not sure she can get away with it again. But it’s certainly funny once.)

She still loves Aziraphale. Loves her in a burning, human sort of way. She doesn’t know if Aziraphale returns it. Part of her doesn’t care, as long as she can stop by the bookshop and tease Aziraphale about her books, but part of her desperately needs more.

Which is to say— she still needs the holy water.

Just in case.

She starts making a plan. Bringing in others. Choosing a church. 

Until Aziraphale finds her. Says she heard about the plan. Says she can’t have Crowley risking her life. 

Hands her a thermos full of holy water.

Crowley never thought she’d feel loved again. She did as an angel, she knew God loved her, and of course so did the other angels, in a superficial sort of way, but then she fell, and there was just a sense of disappointment from everybody. She wasn’t an angel anymore, and she wasn’t all that good at being a demon. 

And she wasn’t loved.

But as she takes the thermos from Aziraphale, their hands overlapping, she feels it. _Love_. 

So she offers Aziraphale a ride. Asks if she wants to go for lunch. Have a picnic.

And Aziraphale refuses, but her words— “You go too fast for me—” her words imply something that wasn’t there before.

So Crowley counts it a success, overall, and she locks the holy water up and swears to Satan never to touch it. (Not literally, of course. Satan can’t know about this.)

* * *

She keeps dropping in at the bookstore whenever she’s passing by (and sometimes when she isn’t). She keeps trying to prod Aziraphale into something resembling a human idea of a date, knowing full well she’ll say no, but now knowing in equal measure that, deep, deep down, Aziraphale loves her back, and Crowley doesn’t want to miss her chance when Aziraphale finally figures that out. 

It’s quite an enjoyable way to spend a few years, really. She still does some evil, but most of it is local, pranks, almost, or just being a bit of a jerk, like the thing with the M25, or all the times she takes up two parking spots with her Bentley. She gets together with the other demons and brags about her accomplishments, such as they are, but otherwise she pretty much forgets about any sort of… larger aspirations.

* * *

Until Hastur mentions, offhand, they’re about to try and start some sort of riot over in the United States, and something about it grabs at Crowley. Not quite knowing why, she drives her car right over the ocean (which, being a demon, she can do if she wants) until she’s in New York, slouching against a wall in some little bar.

Crowley likes to pretend she doesn’t know much about human culture. She likes to say she doesn’t like crowds. 

But that’s not true. She likes the right sort of crowd. The kind of crowd you find in a dark room late at night, just a little tipsy, with an undercurrent of danger in the air. If a demon asked, Crowley would say she spends so much time in these places because she’s trying to tempt or something, but really, she doesn’t want to taint these spaces. There’s something inherently good about them, so good that Crowley isn’t always sure she belongs.

Which just goes to say— Crowley knows a little about human culture. She knows enough to know that you don’t usually see women dancing with women, or men dancing with men, and she knows enough to know that most people try their absolute hardest to fit in with whatever gender they’re supposed to be. 

This bar is like Crowley’s haunts in London. 

She immediately feels at home.

She hears a voice to her left.

“I thought I might find you here.”

Crowley turns. Aziraphale is next to her, standing right up against the wall. Between Crowley’s slouch and Aziraphale’s perfect posture, Crowley, usually much taller, is about six inches shorter. 

“Heard there was going to be a thing here,” Crowley says. “A violent sort of— thing. Thought it might need some evil.”

“Funnily enough,” Aziraphale says, “I thought it might need some good.”

“Well,” Crowley says, “hasn’t started yet. Don’t suppose you’d be up for a dance while we wait.”

“I hardly think that’s appropriate,” Aziraphale says. “Angels don’t dance, you know.”

“Oh, come on,” Crowley says. “I know you learned that one— the— whatever it was. And anyway, look at this place. Can’t you feel it?”

To her surprise, Aziraphale goes quiet in response. “Yes,” she says. “I rather think I can.” 

Crowley pushes away from the wall and holds out a hand. Aziraphale takes it, and for a shining moment, Crowley can’t believe she’s gotten so lucky. (This isn’t evil, is it? It can’t be, not if Aziraphale is involved.)

Crowley pulls Aziraphale to her, holds her waist, nestles her face in Aziraphale’s hair.   
“You know,” she says, her voice quiet enough that only Aziraphale can hear, “I’ve always thought you were all right, angel.”

If Aziraphale is about to respond, Crowley never finds out, because that’s when the cops start banging on the door. 

The ambiance immediately changes. Crowley and Aziraphale jump apart. Crowley sees panic in Aziraphale’s eyes, panic she, too, feels. People are separating, hiding, closing off— 

And then the police are inside, people are rushing out, Crowley gets lost in the chaos—  
And this is the sort of chaos she’s supposed to enjoy, the sort of thing she’s meant to live for, the sort of energy she creates every day, but—

This feels threatening. 

Crowley’s supposed to like threatening.

She doesn’t. 

“Shall we?” Aziraphale asks, gesturing towards the door. 

Crowley grins larger than is, strictly speaking, possible. 

“I believe we shall,” she says, and lets the crowd carry her outside.

The riot’s already in full swing. People are yelling, throwing bricks, and Crowley joins them without a thought. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Aziraphale doing the same, but the lines between good and evil are so blurry at this point that Crowley barely thinks anything of it. She’s not really on the side of evil anymore, anyway. She’s on her own side. Maybe Aziraphale’s side, too. Not that she’d ever tell Beelzebub that.

It’s turning into a full on fight. Crowley is raring to go, practically bristling with energy, but then she hears a startled yelp and turns to see Aziraphale being handcuffed. She lunges for her, but then she feels a rough hand on her shoulder, and she knows it’s over.

She goes along with it and gets carted into a van. Aziraphale isn’t with her, but a number of others are— Crowley waits until the van is completely full, everyone packed in like miserable sardines, the door closed behind them, before she twists her wrists and her handcuffs fall away. She gets up and stretches, and then, casually, snaps her fingers. There’s a clatter while everyone’s handcuffs fall away, and then the door springs open. Crowley jumps out and the others follow, tumbling to the pavement. 

The riot’s still going, but Crowley’s lost all stomach for it. This isn’t her fight, after all. It’s a human fight, and Crowley, as hard as she tries, can never be human.

She tries to find Aziraphale, but she can’t. So she just goes back to her car, parked a few streets over, and sits with her eyes closed, listening to the shouts echoing from the bar.  
The shouts are beginning to die down when the passenger door opens and the balance in the car shifts.

“Hello, angel,” Crowley says, not opening her eyes. She’s never called Aziraphale angel before— she’s hoping Aziraphale doesn’t mention it. “Riot not living up to your expectations?”

“I’ve been at the police station, actually,” Aziraphale says. “Performing some minor miracles, of course.”

Crowley rolls her head to look at Aziraphale. Aziraphale is facing straight ahead, expressionless.

“What did you think?” Crowley asks. “Really?”

“It’s horrible,” Aziraphale says, not missing a beat. “Unjust. And do you know, I don’t think anyone on my side even cares.”

“Suppose it’s us against the world,” Crowley murmurs. 

“Seems so,” Aziraphale agrees. 

Without thinking about it, Crowley reaches out. Her hand finds Aziraphale’s, and she intertwines their fingers. Aziraphale’s hand is cool and soft. Something about it makes her feel better, just a little bit. 

“Do you want a lift back to London?” Crowley asks. “I’ve figured out how to drive on water.”

“Oh, very well, then,” Aziraphale says. “For the novelty, if nothing else.”

It’s a good thing she doesn’t, strictly speaking, need to physically drive for her car to move. Crowley doesn’t let go of Aziraphale’s hand the whole way back.

* * *

Things are different, after that, and they’re not. Crowley still stops by the bookshop, still tries to prod Aziraphale into dates, still does her low-level evil. But something’s changed. There’s a sort of warmth that wasn’t there before, Crowley thinks. A mutual understanding, unspoken. Like when she leans over Aziraphale’s bookshop counter and Aziraphale doesn’t back away, or when they meet in the park and Crowley lets their hands brush against each other for just a moment longer than she needs to. 

(As the eighties get started, Crowley starts to see Aziraphale in more and more hospitals, at the sides of the dying. Neither one of them acknowledges the other, or mentions it, but they both do what they can. It goes without saying, of course, that Crowley is not doing her job as a demon— but she’s not trying to be an angel, either. Only a human, the one thing she’ll never be.)

* * *

And then the Antichrist is born.

* * *

It’s not quite like that. Really, the Antichrist is miracled into existence and then handed to Crowley, shoved into the backseat of her car, and driven to a Satanic convent so the nuns can pretend it was born.

Crowley fulfills her duties, panicking the whole time. She doesn’t want the world to end. The world is nice. It’s got those little bars and ducks in ponds and Aziraphale’s bookshop and so many people. And kids. And, well, if the world ends— she’s going to have a harder time thinking of excuses to hang out with Aziraphale.

So she goes to Aziraphale and, after getting very drunk, they make a plan. 

They have eleven years.

Crowley spends them performing as a nanny, Aziraphale in the garden, each of them trying to indoctrinate the child with just enough evil and just enough good that he’ll turn out perfectly neutral. And if they happen to meet in the park every once in a while (just to check in, of course), well, whose business is that, really?

* * *

It’s a few days before the boy’s eleventh birthday when it really hits.

If they don’t succeed, the world will be over.

Somehow, Crowley’s mind keeps turning to that night before the riot, dancing with Aziraphale in that little bar. Taking a risk in a room full of people taking a similar sort of risk.

And she knows where she wants to be.

“What are you doing here?” Aziraphale asks, seeing Crowley, sans Warlock, enter the garden. 

Crowley doesn’t answer. She walks right up to Aziraphale, takes her by the hand, and says, “Four days to the apocalypse. Let’s blow off work.”

It’s a credit to the trust she’s built up over the years that Aziraphale replies, “Oh, well, all right, then. What do you have in mind?”

“Anything,” Crowley says. “The world’s about to end, angel. What have you always wanted to try?”

“Well,” Aziraphale says, a silly sort of smile on her face, “I suppose I’ve always been curious about— roller coasters.”

“Of course it’s roller coasters,” Crowley says. She had been on just about every roller coaster on the planet at one point or another, ostensibly with the aim of lengthening the lines, but mostly with the aim of enjoying a nice day out. “You’ve really never been?”

“Never,” Aziraphale says.

“Suppose if my Bentley’s too fast for you, roller coasters are out of the question,” Crowley says. “All right, angel. Let’s go.”

And they walk right off the estate.

Aziraphale isn’t much for roller coasters, it turns out. She does rather like the Tilt-a-Whirl, much to Crowley’s dismay.

“I invented that, you know,” she says, steadfastly refusing to ride it a third time. She adds, “Come on, angel, I know what you’ll like.” She takes Aziraphale’s hand and leads her across the park to the Ferris wheel.

“I’m not good with heights,” Aziraphale protests when they get there, looking up at the top of the wheel.

“Oh, I’ll protect you,” Crowley says, instead of mentioning that Aziraphale can literally grow wings at any moment. She knows better than anyone that these things aren’t entirely rational.

“If you say so,” Aziraphale says, and Crowley swears she can detect a blush.

Miraculously, there’s no line, and they step right into a carriage. They begin to rise.   
They sit in silence for a moment, Aziraphale sitting as primly as ever, Crowley practically sprawled across her half of the seat. Once they get to the top, Aziraphale finally speaks.

“This isn’t so bad,” she says.

“Told you,” Crowley says. 

There’s another moment. The carriage starts to lower. It’s reached the bottom and begun to rise again when Aziraphale speaks again.

“I’m rather glad you brought me here,” she says. 

“You’re welcome,” Crowley says. “Got to make the most of the time we have left, don’t you know.”

“I was wondering,” Aziraphale says, “if you had anything you wanted to do. Before the world ends, I mean. Since you asked me”

Crowley weighs her options. On one hand, she could say there’s nothing, let the day continue— on the other hand, she could lie— but— on a third hand—

She looks out at the theme park, spreading out below.

“There is one thing,” she says, vaguely aware that the wheel is approaching its peak. 

“Well, what is it?” Aziraphale asks.

Crowley takes off her sunglasses. Flicks her gaze to Aziraphale. Aziraphale is still looking at her with a confused sort of curiosity. It’s a look Crowley has seen many times before.

Crowley leans closer. Aziraphale doesn’t pull away. 

“This,” she says, and her lips meet Aziraphale’s just as their carriage reaches the top of the wheel. 

The kiss is gentle, and soft, and she pulls away a moment later, hovering an inch in front of Aziraphale’s face.

“That all right, angel?” she asks, as if fireworks aren’t going off in the vague area of where her belly might be.

“Quite,” Aziraphale murmurs, and she moves the infinitesimal distance needed to kiss Crowley again. This one lasts a moment longer, and when they separate, Crowley hovers there a moment longer before flopping back to her side of the carriage and putting her sunglasses back on. 

Neither of them speaks until the carriage gets back to the bottom and they’ve stepped out. The sun is almost down— the park will be closing soon. 

“Lovely night,” Aziraphale says.

She’s right. The air is cool, the sunset beautiful. And, on an emotional level, she’s also right; the only reason Crowley isn’t literally hovering a few inches above the ground with joy is the impending apocalypse weighing her down.

Of course, Crowley doesn’t say any of that. Instead, she says, “Can I drive you home?”

“Of course,” Aziraphale says.

Crowley offers her arm out of some notion of antiquated romance, and, to her surprise, Aziraphale takes it. 

Half an hour later, Crowley pulls up outside Aziraphale’s bookshop. 

“Suppose this is good night,” she says.

“Oh, come inside,” Aziraphale says. “Have a drink. The world’s ending, you know.”

Crowley doesn’t need much more convincing than that.

* * *

The next few days are their own sort of roller coaster.

Crowley wakes up on Aziraphale’s couch the morning after the amusement park, sprawled across a sleeping Aziraphale’s lap. (Neither of them needs sleep, strictly speaking, but they’ve both gotten into the habit, and Crowley wasn’t about to argue the point when soft music was playing in the background and Aziraphale’s hand was in her hair.)

Crowley sits up. Aziraphale doesn’t stir. Crowley stands and stretches, then goes into the kitchen. She doesn’t always eat breakfast, but she’s entirely certain that Aziraphale does, and sure enough, she finds a carton of eggs and a jug of orange juice in the fridge next to a pack of bacon. She thinks about just miracling everything into a meal, but instead she decides to make it herself. There’s something about the way humans do things that Crowley’s always appreciated. Doing it slowly, she thinks, gives it a different sort of magic.

Aziraphale comes in just as Crowley’s getting out plates. 

“Morning, angel,” she says. “Bacon?” 

“Don’t mind if I do,” Aziraphale says.

Crowley picks up a piece of bacon out of the frying pan and holds it out with two fingers to Aziraphale, who takes it. She’s a little scared to look at Aziraphale, to tell the truth, but then she reminds herself that she’s an eternal demon and she’s scared of nothing, and she glances in Aziraphale’s direction.

Aziraphale is gorgeous.

That’s the only word Crowley can think of. Strictly speaking, she doesn’t look that much different from usual (not that she’s not always gorgeous, of course), except that her expression is completely open, more relaxed than Crowley’s ever seen her. 

It takes a moment to realize that Crowley is staring, and also the bacon is burning. She clears her throat and turns back to the food, giving up on finding a spoon and miracling the eggs right onto the plates. She turns back to Aziraphale, plates in hand, to see that Aziraphale’s gotten out the orange juice and is pouring it into two cups. 

“I have to admit,” Aziraphale says as they sit down, “I don’t quite know how this is meant to work.”

“Oh, relax,” Crowley says. “It’ll all be gone in a few days anyway.”

“I like you,” Aziraphale says, and Crowley almost drops— well, not dead, but something approaching it— right there. “I’m not meant to.”

“Oh, who cares what we’re meant to do,” Crowley says. “We’ve spent years doing what we’re meant to do.”

“We haven’t really,” Aziraphale points out.

“Then why start now?” Crowley asks. 

“Well,” Aziraphale says, “I suppose you have a point there.”

“Not to mention,” Crowley adds, “the world’s about to end.”

“Fair enough,” Aziraphale says. “Well then. Crowley. Would you like to, ah— do this again sometime?”

“I’d be honored,” Crowley says, overwhelmed with some type of emotion.

“Excellent,” Aziraphale says. 

And it is.

* * *

Until it’s not.

* * *

The apocalypse comes full force. It hits Crowley like a bag of bricks. Everything she loves is about to be gone, irreparably razed to the ground, if she can’t manage to stop it. She’s working with Aziraphale, except— except the whole thing seems to have reminded Aziraphale that she’s an angel, supposed to be working for the side of “good.” Crowley’s done away completely with the notion of sides and good and evil and the war by now, but Aziraphale clings to it as if she has claws, which maybe she does. Crowley can see Aziraphale struggling— she’s known Aziraphale long enough, after all— but there’s nothing she can do except continue to insist that the only side that matters is their side.

She calls Aziraphale to the bandstand, their third alternate meeting place, because she wants to see her. It’s not about the information, not really, even though she does want to know if Aziraphale’s found the Antichrist. It’s more about the fact that the world’s about to end, and Crowley very much wants to see the being she loves most before that happens. 

But it turns into an argument. Of course it does. Aziraphale still thinks they’re on different sides, and Crowley just wants to fly off to a different galaxy.

A few weeks ago, they were cuddling on Aziraphale’s couch.

Today, Aziraphale doesn’t want anything to do with Crowley.

Crowley gets it. She does. She’s spent enough time repressing, pretending she doesn’t feel anything, pretending she’s evil and wants to do evil. She’s fed up with it, but that doesn’t mean Aziraphale hasn’t spent the last three days in a state of conflict, reminding herself constantly that she and Crowley are natural enemies. It’s harder for Aziraphale, of course, who has something to lose. 

But it hurts. 

It hurts even more when they go their separate ways, and Crowley is left to do what she can against the apocalypse alone (because she’s not going to leave, of course she’s not. Not without Aziraphale).

* * *

She hates everything after that. Hates Aziraphale, for being so afraid to go against her superiors. Hates herself for being a demon, for never being good enough for Aziraphale, for not keeping her damn mouth shut six thousand years ago and falling from God’s grace. And most of all, she hates God Herself, for coming up with an ineffable plan and not thinking of all the people (and angels, and demons) She might hurt. It was blasphemy, of course, but Crowley’s whole identity was based in blasphemy. What was a little more? Especially when it was justified?

* * *

The bookstore burns down.

The bookstore burns down, and Crowley isn’t in time to save it, and she didn’t hate Aziraphale, not really, and why did her best friend have to die?

(Never mind that she’s not really dead, only discorporated. The difference doesn’t matter to Crowley in the moment.)

And she doesn’t hate Aziraphale, but she still hates God, and she still hates herself. 

She does, however, manage to rescue a book of prophecies from the flames.

* * *

The next time she sees Aziraphale in a non-ghostly form, she thinks she’s lost everything. Her car is on fire, her best friend’s been discorporated, the other demons will never accept her after she’s seen trying to stop the apocalypse. 

Aziraphale’s voice, even coming out of someone else’s body, is an immense relief. If she’d been human, she might have cried.

As a demon, she just greets Aziraphale like it’s any other day, with perhaps a touch more drama.

* * *

And everything escalates, gets bigger and badder and more overwhelming, until it stops, and Crowley and Aziraphale are standing on a heavenly cloud with the Antichrist, whose name is Adam.

It’s an important moment, but all Crowley can think about is that Aziraphale is with her, on their side.

And Adam takes Crowley’s hand, and he takes Aziraphale’s, and they return to Earth.

* * *

And the world doesn’t end.

* * *

And Crowley and Aziraphale come up with a trick and survive their trials.

* * *

And then they’re in the park again, talking about what comes next, and the future feels like it’s unfurling in front of Crowley in all its glorious emptiness. Aziraphale lets Crowley take her to lunch at the Ritz, and, even though she knows this is just the beginning, and there’s sure to be all sorts of trouble on the horizon, Crowley finally feels free.

**Author's Note:**

> I skipped through a lot of the actual plot stuff because I didn't want to rehash the whole show... I did keep in a little bit of dialogue in the earlier vignettes but I tried to change it slightly where I could just because there's no fun in reading a fic that's just the show word for word. I'm very interested in what gender means for Aziraphale and Crowley-- I think they'd be more interesting characters if they had been shown to take that into account when choosing their human forms, regardless of what gender they wound up as.


End file.
